Whenever a significant prize-giving event nears, you'll find an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
Another commentator has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. So would board games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing above others. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier game development, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay generations.
